A/N: My version of S8. I never watched the S7 finale but that is where I'm kind of starting things off. Enjoy.
Intro
No longer imbued with the power of a bloodthirsty huntress, her human legs can't carry her fast enough. She runs but it feels she's barely moving. Her muscles work in concert as her lungs burn. Sweat dots her hairline and upper lip, pools in the center of her chest, back, and beneath her armpits. Her jacket is an added weight that slows her down, and her heeled boots are impractical to run in, but she lets none of it stop her.
She is near, drawing closer but is still too far away. His name is a frantic cry that makes her throat ache. But she cannot hear it above the cacophony of what's happening to The Armory. She has no idea why he returned. Why he went back. Bonnie tries to remember that last moment. He had been watching her as she spoke to Damon over the phone and then…he was just gone.
Having left to get Damon.
Her calls have gone unanswered and no one has seen him, and she has the galling sense that no one cares.
Her eyes are now bearing witness to something unexplainable. The building is folding in on itself. It crumbles and shatters, bends, and breaks as if caught in the palm of a tight, invisible fist.
Bonnie slams into something that makes her teeth jar and the breath to rush out of her. Someone is restraining her telling her she can't go inside, it's too dangerous, there's nothing to be done.
"NO! He's in there! ENZO!"
But he does not respond. She cannot hear him, cannot see anything but stone collapsing, windows shattering. Everything is being swallowed into a blinding light that stings her eyes. Bonnie shuts them but opens them out of defiance, because there's no way in the world an entire building is being poltergeist right in front of her.
Unfortunately it is. There are questions. What was in the vault? Did it cause this? Did Enzo get out? What about Damon? Where the hell is he?
The noise is unbearable and Bonnie feels something wet leaking from her ears. Her knees kiss the hard stone, and like a television being turned off, The Armory blinks out of existence.
Nothing is left behind. Not a foundation, not beams, not a gotdamn curtain. It is all gone. Swallowed. Ingested. Just a gaping black hole in the ground.
Her heart hurts. It is no stranger to abandonment, has been dealt blows before, but this is almost too much. She's been saved but it seems moot now because she has been killed again.
Bonnie's fingers curl the material of Stefan's leather jacket. He fights his own disbelief. He has no idea where Damon is. If he too had still been inside. He refuses to even say that his brother is gone, taken from him again. Damon is clever and resourceful; he would have found a way out.
Instead, Stefan rocks Bonnie slightly as she weeps and mourns because her boyfriend may have just literally disappeared. Caroline, slack jawed stumbles forward. The day was not supposed to end this way.
Her vampire eyes spots something shiny on the ground. She rushes towards it, gulps. It is Enzo's daylight ring.
Turning to Bonnie, Caroline does not want to be the messenger.
They stay, search what they can. They wait for hours for anything to happen, change. Nothing does. It grows dark. Bonnie's stomach cramps with hunger, but the thought of food makes her nauseous.
"We need to go, Bonnie," Caroline coaxes her gently. "There's nothing we can do tonight." Or possibly ever.
Bonnie wavers, waffles, wobbles. She feels weak and despises it. Yet hope is lit anew because what if Enzo magically appeared at their cabin? He could be waiting for her.
She soon learns he is not there and Damon is still missing.
Her days are not good. Her nights are even worse. She is a ghost.
.
.
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November.
.
.
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December.
.
.
.
The New Year, Bonnie has not moved. Much. She searches books, consults grimoires, she sleeps and she dreams, and she hates the stagnation of her life, but she fears moving on because that would entail leaving Enzo behind. She's not ready, refuses to believe she will never see him again.
That feeling is familiar and rancid. Pungent. There is no Enzo, there is no Damon and she is stuck.
February brings her birthday. There is cake and presents, decorations, and people she does not know or care about. They are in her face. They want her to talk and she wants them to leave. She is grieving, in mourning, but they do not care about the trivialities of her life as they are only too eager to share the joy of theirs. She hates them for pleasure, for necessity, for principle. They are meaningless and provide her with nothing.
Bonnie leaves and heads upstairs amid worried looks between Caroline and Stefan. They know she's in a bad place, have tried their best to distract her, but nothing has worked. Not for long.
Caroline knocks on her door. Bonnie does not say come in, but doesn't say 'get the hell away from the door' either. She takes it as her invitation to step inside.
Blue eyes find her standing in front of the windows watching the snow fall outside. It is a frequent enough picture, and one that breaks Caroline's heart. Her friend is aging in front of her and she can't stop the process for that is the will of mortality. However, Caroline is not beyond slapping Bonnie back into vitality, not above screaming at her to get her fucking shit together because the pity party is old and tired and her sympathy has just about run out. This is not the Bonnie she knows or likes.
"I know what you're going to say," Bonnie interrupts. "That I need to accept the fact that Enzo is either dead or trapped in a place I can't reach, and not because I don't have magic, but because there's no way to get there. I know that, Caroline," she sighs.
The only witch who had been willing to talk said, after listening to the event being described, relayed that The Armory had been something like a prison world. With its anchor gone (possibly the St. John family) it ceases to exist. Then again, due to the secrets it carried it was possibly spelled to self-destruct.
Caroline says nothing. Bonnie faces her and reaches for the necklace that adorns her neck. She watches as Bonnie yanks it off and holds up Enzo's daylight ring.
"I'm…I'm ready to let him go."
Instantly the annoyance Caroline felt evaporates and she wants to tell Bonnie it's too soon, and that she shouldn't feel pressured to move on.
"No, it's time," Bonnie says as if reading her mind. "I can't hold on to this pain anymore. I don't want to. It's not helping. So from here on out, I'm done secretly wishing." Her smile lacks realism. "Happy Birthday to me."
Into a keepsake box the ring goes, and that box Bonnie gives to Caroline.
"I'll…put it somewhere safe," Caroline vows.
"Thank you."
Bonnie is still sad. Her heart is still broken. But it's a little easier to rise in the mornings. She has a new purpose now. Add substance to her life.
She learns to play poker to better learn to read people. It's no great mystery that people thought one thing and said another, but not everyone mastered their emotions. If you look carefully enough they are very easy to find.
Their revelation is not always overt like a blush or veins bulging, eyes widening or mouths frowning. Tears. Sometimes it's nothing more than the shrinking of a pupil, a change in posture, or tone of voice. You couldn't talk during poker though. You could only infer and calculate. Find your opponents' tell and use it against them.
Bonnie regards her reflection in the vanity mirror.
She's still too easy to read.
The signs begin to appear at the end of March. It is like the summer Stefan spent with Klaus, but the victims are human and not supernatural. That is how it is missed for so long. Is it the work of a ripper? They are rare but enough scour the earth to leave a devastating impression behind.
"Rippers don't leave behind calling cards," Stefan shares his knowledge with a note of distance in his tone. He knows what he is, but does not enjoy pointing out that fact. He is a sneeze away from becoming a pseudo stepfather. The last thing he wants is the girls to know he really enjoys dismemberment. "This is not the work of one."
"How can we know that for sure?" Bonnie folds her arms.
Stefan lays out a few photographs that he does not explain how he obtained them. "Nine days ago, fifteen bodies have been recovered from an abandoned building in Normandy, Missouri. Each of them bears that mark," he points at crescent shapes behind the left ears of the victims. "It's been ruled out it's the sign of some religious faction or cult. These people have no real connection to one another. Not in physical appearance, occupation, education, or familial ties. And in fact, most are not citizens of Normandy. This is not a tattoo, but a brand."
"Okay so…" Caroline trails off. "How exactly did these people die?"
"Essentially they beat each other to death."
"And you're thinking…" Bonnie prompts.
"I'm thinking this might have something to do with whatever was in the vault." The weight of that settles in Bonnie and Caroline's guts and they shift on their feet accordingly. Stefan continues. "We know that it got out. We know that it causes people to delve into manic and violent behavior. We've been waiting for it to make its appearance. It seems that it has."
"It's out, but that doesn't mean we need to be the ones to stop it. We don't even know what it is or what it looks like," argues Caroline.
Stefan nods in agreement but there is more to this story. Something he has yet to tell. Mainly out of a fleeting need not to get preemptively excited. He does so anyways. "I think…Damon might be with it."
Two pairs of eyes blink at Stefan in incredulity.
For Bonnie the news hits her and she wants to wiggle her ear. Right after the disappearance of The Armory, Stefan had been on a crusade to find his brother. His obsession nearly matched hers in terms of finding Enzo, but after a while Stefan hoarded his knowledge. Dead ends and bad leads led to staggering disappointment. That is not something she is immune to.
"You think Damon was involved in this gladiator grudge match?" Bonnie goes for skepticism.
"Three of the victims, one had my name as a middle name, another—her first name was Elena, and another, her middle name was Bonnie. Am I'm not supposed to see that as a sign or message?" Stefan clarifies.
Caroline is miffed none of the victims had her name and yes she knows she's being insensitive and petty.
Bonnie doesn't know how to feel that one of the victims shared her name, but rather takes it as a sign. Perhaps it is coincidence but nothing is coincidence. Things occur within and out of reason—yes, but this, this has to be a sign.
Damon was alive.
That flicker of hope lasts a minute and quickly petered out. If Damon is alive he is he wind. He is a cipher, malware that sneaks into your hard drive does it business and leaves. They fail to catch up or catch him. They see his face on too many people, follow the wrong men whose gait is a near replica of his. Stake out bars and taverns he never enters. Women have not warmed his bed. Men have not tasted his knuckles. No one knows him. And trust his is a face to remember if one is not compelled to forget.
"Damn you," Bonnie curses into her bourbon as another night of fruitless searching yields nothing.
She is tired and cranky, under sexed and off her routine. Six weeks and the fog rolls back and she doesn't stop it. Bonnie welcomes its familiarity.
Spring fades to summer and more mass killings happen, but there is no sign of Damon or his alleged involvement.
Bonnie misses him. She does her best to show she is annoyed with him above all.
The nights are long and she has to deal with herself. The awakening is rude.
The twins have come to Mystic Falls for the summer and their endless chatter brings a reluctant smile to Bonnie's face. They ask her questions about magic, about movies, games, what Caroline was like at their age. They worry about their Uncle Damon for they too don't believe he's dead. They ask Bonnie when will she get another boyfriend.
With Josie and Lizzie around it forces Bonnie out of the house and into the real world. And here she is hit with another startling realization that life is passing her by.
She pays closer attention to people, places, and things. Her town has changed and she feels out of place. Home, the boardinghouse, provided shelter and comfort but was a prison of inescapable facts. The fact the door to Damon's room remains shut at all times. The fact Caroline has helped herself to redecorate. The fact she spends far too much time being a third wheel.
Being around Stefan and Caroline can be stifling at times, bearing witness to a never-ending rom-com or romantic dramedy. She does not begrudge them happiness, but it makes her think of herself as undesirable. An issue she's battled longer than anyone cared to notice, mainly because she never emphasized her need for basic affirmation. It is quite clear she is the token, the element in which suffering is perpetually heaped on with few breaks in between. Each of her friends has been an author of her story, but Bonnie has come to grasp her femininity and importance cannot be properly told or seen through the lens of her white contemporaries.
They've labeled her according to their view of the world. A world in which color and race does not exist. She is simply Bonnie in their eyes and a witch. She is not of African descent, or has her own culture or customs that need nurturing and developing. She is merely an extension of them, someone who bleeds red. And she adapted to their adaptations thinking it was better than nothing. Hell, she didn't even have the requisite one black friend. Yet in relinquishing the firming of her identity, it has led to near reprehensible damages. Scars. She has lost touch with herself for she has never truly known herself.
Outside of her bubble, Bonnie's learned that she is disliked and not trusted, profiled and condescended to. Her light skin offers her some privileges, but those privileges are revoked when with her white friends. She is too dark to belong, not human and therefore deserves no respect. Case in point, dining with Caroline and Stefan at a restaurant outside of town last night. Their waiter was pleasant and jovial with the couple, but when it came to her he was snappish, short, barely acknowledged her sitting at the table. Stefan nearly compelled him to check his attitude but Caroline opted to leave. There are other incidents, of course: being mistaken for the twins' nanny. She can't forget the looks she had gotten from black men when out and about with Jeremy. Scathing looks that essentially called her a traitor, yet never mind the fact more than half would run off with a Kardashian if one looked twice in their direction.
This is a poignant reality for Bonnie, but there is some solace to be found in the fact her story is mirrored a million times over in other black women who walk the earth.
Yet knowing this and not having been aware of it before makes her wonder just how ignorant she had been. The world has issues—yes, and bad things happened to good people regardless of race had been her ideology. And what of her own prejudices she carried, the stereotypes that were reinforced from the programming she watched, music she listened to, books she read? The world is complex and problematic with structures and systems built to block access to resources, she's becoming more aware of that now. Her makeup is not simply the granddaughter of Sheila Bennett, the abandoned child of Abby, the last of the Bennett line. There is more to her.
She wants to rectify this. If she wants change, change has to begin with self.
Bonnie thanks the barista for her drink and swings to face the crowd. There is a group of twentysomething olds talking politics, appropriation, literature, and music. Their voices are the void she's been missing. Their opinions are the ones she wants to fill her head. They are unapologetically black.
She is nervous. Bonnie anticipates rejection. She anticipates they will take one look at her and say her views are too white to understand anything they are talking about. She would have to say she might even agree up to a point.
Sucking in a deep breath, Bonnie crosses the bistro and hovers until someone, presumably the leader, looks at her.
"Hey, do you mind if I join you, guys?"
A pair of sapphire irises glints through pane glass staring into the bistro. A smirk pulls at the corner of his pale pink lips revealing a bare hint of teeth. "Hello, Bonnie."
A/N: TBC possibly. Thank you for reading. Let me know what you think.